New Imaging Techniques to Improve Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Disease

This picture is part of vibrational photoacoustic image that shows the plaque in a wall of the artery(Purdue University)

Cardiovascular disease is the one of the leading causes of death in the United States; it affects all people equally regardless of age, gender, or ethnicities. The research for this disease is vast and the treatment is vital. However, the diagnosis is equally important. This new imaging technology helps in diagnosing cardiovascular disease. It utilizes Vibrational Photoacoustic or VPA microscopy with the help of ultrasound signals where molecules are exposed to a fast pulsing (nanosecond) laser in the IR range of the spectrum. The vibrations generated by the laser does not produce any effect in the blood, in turn, these vibrations create heat and that generates "pressure waves that can be picked up by a device called the transducer". Although there are imaging techniques that exist to provide molecular information about a disorder, this type of method enables to penetrate deep into the tissue to create a three dimensional model of the plaque and moreover, "eliminates the tissue scattering problems". This precise character of the imaging technique aids in locating and revealing "the C-H bonds found in lipids that cause the formation of plaque in cardiovascular disease". Even though, it is mainly used for diagnosing heart disease, recent results proved that in fact, VPA can be a vital tool for diagnosing diseases such as diabetes or other lipid based disorders of central nervous system or also to study the role of collagen in scar formation. Currently, biomedical engineers at Purdue university are working on quantifying this technique by miniaturizing the system itself to use it as an endovascular procedure that can be inserted into the blood vessels to know the “exact nature of the plaque formation”.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110609173720.htm
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110609ChengVascular.html
http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm